


a wind to shake the stars

by skywalkwithme



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back
Genre: Character Development, Hoth, I love him, Yavin, leia is sad about alderaan, luke is my son, luke is sad about biggs, the rebellion is a mess ngl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 21:19:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11906421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skywalkwithme/pseuds/skywalkwithme
Summary: He kicks a rock off the cliff just for the hell of it, and it falls in a wide arc. Luke watches it go, and thinks about obsidian-black starships, and the red flash of blaster bolts and the blinding light and heat of a sun seen from space. And he thinks about the sand, and the grit, and the broken vaporator in Field 6 and Uncle Owen’s calloused, scarred hands.basically just a series of short drabbles about luke from pre-new hope to post-return of the jedi.  updating as i go.title is taken from the 1981 star wars radio drama





	1. tatooine

 

For a second he doesn’t hear him.

They’re sitting on the edge of Beggar’s Canyon, feet swinging over the precipice, flicking small stones carelessly into the sandy abyss. He’s watching one stone fall, bouncing noiselessly off off the cliff walls before it disappears into nothing.

“I’m going to the Academy. I got in.”

He glances up.

Biggs is staring down at his sand-scuffed boots, and he looks up sideways to meet Luke’s gaze.

“I leave next week. I’m going into the Navy,” he says, smiling. He looks proud, excited- his eyes are glinting like moon-glare off a cockpit. Already Luke can see him in one of the sharp-pressed uniforms, glossy boots, snapping a salute with his back straight, piloting starships in faraway systems.

He deserves it. Biggs is a good pilot, and clever too. At Tosche Station they still talk about him threading the Stone Needle when he was a kid. He’s got an eye for engines- didn’t he fix Luke’s speeder when the carbon drive broke way out in the Wastes when they were thirteen? And he always did better in tests than Luke, could recite all the Outer Rim systems the best in the class. Yes, he deserves it.

But Luke can’t help the thought- he’s a better pilot than Biggs- even if he didn’t thread the Needle, he always wins when they race. And Luke’s better in a fight, scrappier, where Biggs never learned to throw a good punch. Luke’s stronger than him, too, even if he doesn’t look it, from years hauling the vaporator tanks when Treadwell broke down.

But Biggs is smiling at him, hesitantly, so Luke smiles back, and says, “I can’t believe it, Biggs.”

He laughs in response and claps Luke roughly on the back. “Finally! After twenty years on this blasted hunk of rock. A cadet!” Biggs says grandly.

“Send me a Stormtrooper helmet.” says Luke.

“You better believe I will!” he says, and then stands up. “I’m going to Coruscant!” he hollers into the empty canyon. “Whoo!”

He kicks a rock off the cliff just for the hell of it, and it falls in a wide arc. Luke watches it go, and thinks about obsidian-black starships, and the red flash of blaster bolts and the blinding light and heat of a sun seen from space. And he thinks about the sand, and the grit, and the broken vaporator in Field 6 and Uncle Owen’s calloused, scarred hands.

They ride back to Tosche Station in Luke’s speeder while Biggs shouts over the engine about uniform fittings and packing and bunk assignments. He’s going with fifty other recruits in a freighter out of Mos Eisley in six days. Luke lets him out outside the station gates, offering to take him further, but he hops out, insisting he’ll walk the last klick home.

A sandstorm is clouding on the horizon, blotting out the setting suns and casting gray shadows across the flats.

“Better hurry!” calls Luke.

“See you in a year! Tell Uncle Owen where he can stuff that application deferment!” Biggs yells in response.

Luke laughs, and Biggs turns away and begins striding across the sand. Luke watches him go, until he’s almost lost in the growing darkness. He waits until all he can make out is the flap of his cloak before starting back.

He speeds back, watching the sandy ground fly past under his repulsors and wishing he could make it go just a little faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're not familiar with biggs, it's because he's in one scene in a new hope and then immediately dies. for more context there's the new hope deleted scenes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYpa6OpCe-Y) certified Good Luke Content, and the first part of the radio drama (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQxVZzAYEL4) which i also love.


	2. yavin

“Can we get a cheer for Luke Skywalker!” bellows a tall Nautolan.

A loud, joyous clamour goes up in response, hundreds of alien tongues and languages. Luke is thronged on all sides by masses of beings, colourful species he’s never seen before, men and women clapping, cheering, sobbing hugging each other. People keep clapping him on the back, coming up to shake his hand.

The Nautolan, from his raised perch on an ion-blackened X-Wing, shouts again, “How’d you do it, golden boy?”

“I-” he says, before a shocking blue Twi’lek woman calls, “Doesn’t matter how he did it, Farr, just matters he did!”

That raises another jubilant cry. A Sullustan, wearing a mechanic’s suit, grasps his wrist and chatters excitedly at him, and he’s about to say he’s sorry, he doesn’t understand, before a Devaronian swoops over and takes both his shoulders.

“He says you have avenged his loss! Munuru’s wife and children were killed by the Empire twelve years ago.” he says excitedly.

The Sullustan- Munuru- blinks black eyes at him.

“Oh- that’s terrible-” but he’s turned away again, by a human woman with long black hair who grasps him in a half-hug. She’s smiling widely, tears streaming from her eyes. “The Rebellion owes you.” she says fiercely. “We are all in your debt.”

“Thank you,” he says, unsure how to respond.

“You’re a hero.” she says, with terrible happiness.

“This will be a day to go down in history!” calls the Nautolan, and suddenly the beings on all sides of him feel very close. There’s millions of colourful faces, millions of blinking, hopeful eyes- he doesn’t know what to say, how to act, doesn’t even understand half the languages spoken- when a familiar voice by his ear says, “Hey.”

It’s Wedge.

“You’re called for a med exam.”

Grateful, Luke takes his hand and Wedge begins to lead him out of the crowd. A discordant moan of disappointment goes up.

“Sorry.” says Wedge. “Doctor’s orders.”

Luke feigns a rueful shrug. It seems to satisfy.

The crowd thins and then suddenly runs out altogether, and they’re in a dark hallway off the X-Wing hangar. Luke takes a second to lean against the wall. The air is cool and faintly damp. He feels better.

“Thanks.” he says.

“Yeah. Looked like a lot.” Wedge gives him a small smile.

The doctor, a gruff Whiphid, prescribes him a hot cup of caf and a good sleep. He’s given a key to his new quarters, and stack of folded clothes too big for him. Wedge laughs at him when he trips on a pant leg on their way to his room.

“These would fit Chewie better.” he grumbles.

His room is very small, with a low, sloping ceiling, but very clean. They can both stand in it at the same time, so long as one of them hunches over.

Wedge grimaces a little. “Hey, at least you got a window.”

Luke wrenches it open, and fresh night air fills the room. It’s nighttime now, probably one or two AM, although he’s probably still on Tatooine time. Weird- it feels like years.

Wedge whistles. “Look.”

The starlit sky outside looks odd somehow, and it takes him a second to identify why. Then- it’s glittering, like a cloud of shining dust, or hundreds of thousands of miniscule stars.

“It’s the Death Star. What’s left of it.”

“Yeah. The rubble.”

They stand in silence. I did that, he thinks. He remembers the way it looked through the cockpit of his X-Wing- looming, unfathomable, like the eye of a god. And now all that’s left of it is a faint glitter in the night sky.

He wonders how many millions of people were on it. Ten? Twenty? He can’t image ten million people. The biggest place he’d ever been to before this was Mos Eisley.

He doesn’t know how big the Rebellion is, either. Back home, he got one crackly, cryptic holo message from Biggs, telling him he planned to jump ship, that the Rebellion was big and getting bigger- “shaking the stars”, he said, with his typical grandeur- and that they’d get the Empire pretty soon.

Biggs. Well, they did. They got them, and Biggs missed it by about a minute. And Luke was supposed to be the one with bad luck.

Biggs should be here, soaking in all the glory, getting medals and admiring looks and slaps on the back. He’d be better at it than Luke- he could make rousing speeches, look snappy in a cape, shake hands. He remembers when Biggs led the Sand People away from the Bluesands’ homestead on his speeder when he was sixteen, and how he soaked up the praise after. Luke just feels tired and faintly guilty.

They used to make up stories like this, as kids. Saving hordes of treasure from space pirates, fighting warlords and crooks. But they never ended with Luke staring up into the drifting sky, wondering where Biggs’ body was among the clouds of dust.

Should’ve been Biggs. But it’s him, instead. One lucky shot.

“Just like shooting womp rats in your T-16, huh?” says Wedge.

Luke looks at him. He laughs softly. “You must’ve been reading my mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wedge is a Good Dude and i wish he was in the movies more


End file.
